Netanyahu adviser charged with leaking secret Israeli military documents

by Junna Base November 5, 2024

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accused of leaking sensitive information to two news outlets in hopes of sabotaging a hostage deal with Hamas in a political scandal that has rocked Israeli politics.

Illegal removal of military-related “secret and sensitive intelligence information” could have caused “serious damage to the security of the state and posed a threat to information sources” and the possibility of an agreement to release the hostages, who are believed to still be in Hamas -Being in captivity will be destroyed. a judge wrote in the ruling.

Court documents obtained by The Times of Israel identify Eli Feldstein, a spokesman for Netanyahu, as one of the officials accused of leaking top-secret information. The names of three other Israeli defense officials suspected in the case have not yet been released.

The information was leaked to the Jewish Chronicle and the German Bild newspaper.

The exclusive Bild article based on the leak states that a document “from Hamas’ military intelligence” shows that Hamas is “manipulating the international community, torturing the hostage families and attempting to rearm” and that they ” “as indifferent to a quick end to the war as they are, to the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population.”

The Jewish Chronicle reported that former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who has since been killed in an Israeli strike, planned to “smuggle himself and the remaining Hamas leaders along with Israeli hostages through the Philadelphia Corridor” into Gaza Egypt and further connects with Iran.

But later questions arose about the veracity of the documents. And its release overlapped heavily with a talking point Netanyahu was pushing at the time – that Israel needed to hold the Philadelphia Corridor to reach a deal.

Netanyahu referred to the Bild article from early September, saying it revealed Hamas’s “plan of action: to sow discord among us, to use psychological warfare against the hostages’ families, to exert internal and external political pressure on the government of Israel, to tear us apart.” .” [a]to separate from within and continue the war until further notice, until Israel is defeated.”

“Hamas consistently refuses to make a deal,” he said in an appearance on Fox News in September. “The report that there is a deal out there, that the only thing stopping things is the Philadelphia Tunnel, is not simply untrue, it is simply a blatant lie.”

The Jewish Chronicle later fired Elon Perry, the freelancer who wrote the article, and removed all of his articles from its website after a “thorough investigation.”

“Obviously, being deceived by a journalist is every newspaper editor’s worst nightmare,” Jewish Chronicle editor Jake Wallis Simons said in a post on X. “Readers can be assured that stricter internal procedures will be put in place.”

The Israeli military later said it could not confirm reports that Hamas was trying to smuggle hostages into Egypt, and Daniel Hagari, its spokesman, expressed doubts about their veracity when questioned by Israeli media.

Pressure is growing in Israel over hostage-taking

The articles were published days after six Israeli hostages were found dead in a tunnel in Gaza, sparking Israeli protests and outrage at Netanyahu, whom the families of some hostages see as sabotaging a ceasefire agreement for his own political gain.

Hamas kidnapped more than 200 Israelis and killed 1,200 others on Oct. 7 as the militant group’s fighters overran the Gaza border in a surprise attack. Since then, Israel has launched an air and ground siege of the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 43,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and created a humanitarian crisis as famine and disease spread throughout the enclave.

More than 100 of the hostages have been released – most of them as part of a ceasefire agreement last November, some released in Israeli military operations. But as the conflict continues, around 100 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip.

“These people are living on a roller coaster of rumors and half-truths,” Dana Pugach, a lawyer for some of the hostage families, told Reuters on Saturday.

“For a year they have been waiting to hear any intelligence or information about negotiations to release these hostages,” she said. “If some of this information was stolen from Army sources, then we believe the families have the right to know all relevant details.”

Contribution: Reuters

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